


The Anatomy of a Feather

by WritingCactus



Category: Marble Hornets, Slender Man Mythos
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Jam, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pining, Pre-Slash, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, Wings, like. it's gay but we're not quite there yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 11:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19462654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingCactus/pseuds/WritingCactus
Summary: Jay's losing feathers. Tim helps as much as he can.





	The Anatomy of a Feather

**Author's Note:**

> I saw some MH fanart with wings and idk if it's part of an established au or anything, but my bird-loving gremlin self latched onto that real hard!

“Man, you really just let these go to shit, huh?” Tim laughs from behind him, running a hand across the top of his wings, catching on a feather or two along the way, and Jay huffs.

“I don’t really have time to preen while trying not to get shot by Alex.” Which is only kind of true--when he isn’t actively running through the woods, there’s more than enough time, holing himself up in dark rooms for hours on end with nothing to do but go through tapes and wait for something to find him, unable to even pass the time with sleep--but bothering with his wings had just seemed like too much. It was easier to just ignore them, pulling out any really broken, painfully bent feathers if they were bothering him, but that was it. But from Tim’s reaction, maaaybe that hadn’t been the best idea.

He just got the familiar “make better decisions” grunt in return, and he felt himself ruffle slightly.

“Look, I’ll fix them up at the next hotel we stop at, okay?” Maybe that one would have a shower that wasn’t mysteriously stained and smelled like something rotten, plus hotel soap worth pocketing, but probably not.

“No, you won’t.” Tim is in front of him again, more amused than disappointed, arms crossed and his own wings tucked neatly against his back, black and gleaming.

“No, I won’t. I’ve just got other things to worry about right now.” Yeah, _no shit _, they were both well aware of the “other things” currently trying to actively kill them at that very moment, couldn’t stop being so aware of it. He feels his wings tug up against his back at the thought, trying and probably failing to pass it off as stretching. It’s daylight, the door’s locked, he isn’t alone, and none of that matters even a little bit.__

____

“Hm. Well, I’m not doing anything, I’ve got it.” Tim announces with a stubborn finality, and Jay stops, looking up from the camera strap he’s been messing with to try and distract himself. Wait, what?

____

“Wait, what?” he asks, running on way too little everything to be coherent.

____

“I’ll fix ‘em up if you won’t. Seriously, if I have to watch any more bad cable and get up every five seconds because one of us thinks we hear something, I’m gonna lose it. You can just sit there looking at tapes or whatever.” Jay made to protest or something, but Tim was already in the dubious bathroom, the sink running, and he’s genuinely too tired to do anything about it. It isn’t like actually taking care of himself and his wings could hurt, even if the general discomfort of feathers sticking together or bending the wrong way just kind of meshed into static with every other negative sensation in his body. And he knew from experience that both of them were stubborn enough that arguing would just waste time. Jay sighs, scooching himself to the edge of the shitty hotel mattress and unfurling his wings. Tim comes back a second later, wet rag in hand, and pulls up a chair behind him to get to work.

____

At first, Jay had fiddled with his camera, holding onto the vague idea of looking for anything important on it, given up and messed with his phone out of boredom, and given up on that, too. Instead he focuses on the ugly comforter underneath him, keeping himself from shifting around too much, and the feeling of Tim’s hands. It’s so unfamiliar, how gentle they are, starting right at the base of his left wing, taking a moment to press against the coverts there before starting to piece them apart while running the cool rag against them, and he sighs. He works his way across the top ridge of his blue jay’s wings, all delicate, half-there touches, so different than anything he’s felt in years, and Jay lets himself fade out.

____

He’d figured out pretty quickly that losing your mind with someone else was completely different from losing it alone. Spending endless days with only the eyes in a camera and the ones you felt over your shoulder was a nightmare. He was never, never sure of what he was seeing, hearing, feeling, and there was a certain type of terror that came from looking back at a moment he’d thought nothing of and seeing that his senses had failed him and he’d never been safe. It made his blood run cold every time, the fear and sickening curiosity that came with each new tape. Years, spent like that, drowning in an emptiness that wouldn’t quit, trying so hard to keep himself there. Even when he’d been “working” with Alex, Jay had still been entirely alone.

____

But now, he could know in an instant that yes, there had been a noise around the corner, yes, everything hurt, yes, that thing was out there and there was nothing they could do. Jay could watch Tim’s back and know for certain that Tim was watching his. Working together made things easier, even when they disagreed, even when talking to Tim felt like fighting a brick wall, even when neither of them were fully there, they could piece an almost-person together between the two of them.

____

And it wasn’t even entirely just not being alone, but being with Tim.

____

The thought decks him from out of the haze, something he hadn’t quite been aware of before but now can’t really stop knowing. Even after all the things Jay’s done and times he’d messed up, the lying, the secrets, the whole “whoops I put your personal medical records on my youtube channel”, Tim had chosen to stay with him just because there was a chance he could help. It makes his stomach twist slightly, but there was no turning back. Tim is steady in a way that was hard to describe, just as bombarded with this shit as he had been and for so much longer, affected but not letting it break him. A cliff reaching right up out of a stormy ocean, and Jay sort of felt like he’s clinging to him for dear life, probably because he is. And he kind of sucks with these things but it felt like, at some point, they’d even wound up as friends in whatever bizarre way was only possible when you fight for your lives together. Tim’s kind in a way that seemed impossible, funny when everything was falling apart, determined when they should’ve been losing their heads. He just hopes that he could come close to matching up, and he hasn’t been left alone again yet.

____

A gasp of breath from behind him drags Jay out of his suddenly very awkward, Tim-centric thought spiral, and the stained hotel walls, shuttered windows, and bolted door come back into focus.

____

“Oh,” Tim breaths from out of his line of sight, the places in his wings where his hands had just been suddenly cold. “Oh, _fuck _.” A shock goes up Jay’s spine.__

______ _ _

“What? What’s wrong?” Everything could be, every single thing that his paranoia dreamed up could’ve come true in this moment.

______ _ _

Wait, it’s fine, don’t worry about it--” He tries, but it’s too late, he’s already turning around to see the problem.

______ _ _

Tim’s hands are full of feathers. The white and gray and black and bright blue of his wings, some long and thin and some short and fluffy, his wings held between fingers and scattered out across the bed sheets. Too many, too many of them, whole patches, the ends of some cracking with dried blood or snapped into pieces. His eyes flicker back and forth over them, piles of them, and what’s left of his wings are frozen, he doesn’t dare move them in case any more fall out. It was like one of those nightmares, the strange ones where one feather falls out with perfect clarity and all the rest follow until there’s none left, the kind that you can’t forget in the morning, except he’s painfully awake. On the edges of his mind, Jay can tell that Tim looks guilty, for dislodging them or failing to hide it, but he can’t really focus. It’s just another part of _this _. The sickness, the paranoia, the haunting.__

________ _ _ _ _

He’s lost weight, lost sleep, lost friends, so why not feathers?

________ _ _ _ _

Jay laughs, or maybe chokes, staring at his own feathers spread out before him and wondering how many more are going to fall.

________ _ _ _ _

“Wait, wait Jay, you’re fine,” Tim starts, putting his hands up in a placating way, but that just makes the bright blues in his palms drift down onto the tattered comforter.

________ _ _ _ _

“Does this look fine to you? You’re seeing this, right?” Jay’s own voice sounds far away from his head, but he can tell it’s frantic, and there’s a hand on his shoulder. He can’t help but argue.

________ _ _ _ _

“Yes, I am, and I’m telling you anyway. Look.” Tim is still--how is he still calm? All he can do is watch as Tim turns, spreading out his own wings as far as they’ll go until they seem to take up the whole room, and at first Jay doesn’t see anything, even as Tim does his best to reach behind himself and lift up some feathers. But then he notices the patches where feathers don’t quite poke through, hidden by the darkness of the crow wings. There are places, here and there, where the tissue has been scarred over again and again, only shielded by the longer feathers around them, and areas where the feathers have forced themselves through anyway, the flesh beneath them warped, and spots where some feathers are so clearly newer than the others, smaller and neater and shinier in a sea of black. He’s not the only one.

________ _ _ _ _

Without thinking, Jay leans forward from where he’s still sitting on the bed, reaches out and touched the pads of his fingers to one scarred spot, a gap nearly hidden by the alula above it, and Tim starts but doesn’t pull away. Nothing will grow here again, but the wing beneath his palms is still warm and alive and safe.

________ _ _ _ _

“I’ve been losing feathers on and off since I was a kid, since… all of this started for me, but I still have wings. It just seems like a lot for you because they’ve built up for awhile.” He explains, still facing away as he speaks, and Jay breathes out, watching as the down feather shift with it. There’s nothing he can do to stop it. He’s still alive, as much as he can be, he’ll still have his wings, mostly. Tim’s been through this, Tim knows what to do, Tim is here.

________ _ _ _ _

It’s another reminder that he’s had the worst of all of this, right from the beginning. He’s been through everything and come out of it more than once, and both the scars and the feathers still there prove it. He’s not unscathed, but he’s not six feet under. Jay thinks, not for the first time, of Tim, all alone in that burned-up hospital, nothing more than a child, finding feathers scattered across a cold and barren floor, probably wondering if he’d pulled them out himself, and his heart burns.

________ _ _ _ _

“Okay,” Jay breathes, letting go of the tension in his wings, not letting himself check to see if that was enough to knock out any more feathers. “Okay.”

________ _ _ _ _

“Alright. What we’re gonna do is you’re going to get comfortable again, I’ll get the rest of the loose ones out and then clean the rest. Taking care of the wings should help keep the rest of them in.” He digs through the tiny first aid kit they cobbled together, knowing the whole time that it would be useless if things really went south. “Uhh, how do you feel about some neosporin n your feathers? That’s the best we have.”

________ _ _ _ _

“Uh, bad, but I’ll take it,” He says, the words sounding normal again. Anything sticky on his wings won’t be a good sensation, but he’s got other concerns.

________ _ _ _ _

Jay sits back down the bed, spreading his wings out once more, picking up one of his own feathers to fiddle with, looking at it as though it’s not his own, not proof of deterioration. It’s a secondary, a bright, gleaming blue lined with night-black and white at the tip, some of it caked with dirt and who knows what else, the edges ruffled in a way that they’ll never smooth out again. It’s beautiful. He runs his hands up was down the edge as Tim returns.

________ _ _ _ _

This time, his movements are different, setting aside cleaning and organizing with loosening and tugging, but still gentle. He still works on the left wing, carding his fingers through the feathers and pausing to set the dislodged ones down on the bed, slowly and carefully working his was underneath and through the whole thing, and there’s a few tiny places where Jay can suddenly feel the cold of the hotel airconditioning, fighting off Alabama’s heat. He doesn’t think about it, focuses on the feeling of the barbs shifting beneath his fingers. Tim moves on to the other one, the minutes ticking by as the feathers gather.

________ _ _ _ _

Still, it feels like some pressure has been taken out of his wings, everything put back into the right place and settled properly for the first time in… years, probably. Tim lets him know that he can already see new feathers, full of blood, growing in places, and he’s extra careful around those. The neosporin is just as uncomfortable as he’d thought, enough that Jay has to fight to keep from tugging his wings away at times, but Tim just keeps on working, giving him the seconds he needs to settle himself. He ends, just like he said, by washing the crud out of the rest of them.

________ _ _ _ _

They decide to keep the feathers, grabbing a few of those over-sized ziplock bags, because he doesn’t want to just throw them all away yet.

________ _ _ _ _

For a moment, he looks up from where he’d been grabbing handfuls to see Tim, his back turned, still being careful, gathering them up. He watches the movement of his hands and feels himself stumble over something internally, suddenly and terribly at the edge of a precipice, feather after feather. Jay, inside of himself, stares out at the something below him, feeling the overwhelming tug of it, towards Tim. His wings, still warm with the touch of careful fingers, arch themselves over his head, something inside of him racing, shoving him closer to the precipice.

________ _ _ _ _

Jay takes a deep breath and steps away from the edge, focusing on the feathers in his own hands instead.

________ _ _ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> I lowkey wanna write a more canon-compliant (besides the wings) thing that just looks at some marble hornets scenes with the addition of wings and the signaling that can come with that? But also some seperate jam stuff because I'm gay and I do what I want.  
> Also: Jay just sprinting away from his own gay feelings is a big mood. Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed!!! :^D :^D :^D


End file.
